


The Best Revenge

by dlyt



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene from Human Factor, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dlyt/pseuds/dlyt
Summary: A missing scene from "Human Factor"
Relationships: Janette DuCharme & Lucien LaCroix, Janette DuCharme & Nicholas Knight, Janette/Robert McDonagh
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	The Best Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgements: Many, many thanks to PJ1228 for multiple rounds of beta-reading and suggestions through several rewrites! And thanks to BrightKnightie for an unwitting nudge that brought it all together!
> 
> Disclaimer: These Forever Knight characters do not belong to me. I am borrowing them for fanfiction purposes only. No profit, only fun!

The absence of pain was the first thing Janette noticed. It felt familiar - a sense of well-being: a comfortable, secure, powerful euphoria. She wondered at it briefly, unable to determine why it would be so remarkable to feel so content.

“Someone must have put out the fire,” she thought, smiling as she toyed with the idea that it must have been Robert. Once again, Robert had saved her from a fire, surely. But, no, it couldn’t have been Robert, she thought, suddenly remembering. Robert was dead.

Her returning memory brought with it a new flood of suffocating pain: the physical agony of hunger overwhelmed by the emotional devastation that threatened her very sanity. Damn Nicolas! She had wanted to die! She had wanted an end to pain, an end to memory, an end to everything!

She opened her mouth to release the wails of grief and anger and pain trapped just under her breath, and found she had no strength with which to voice them. Curling in on herself, she shoved her fists against her teeth, feeling their once-familiar sharp points digging into her fingers. For a time, she lay still, fighting the pain of hunger and despair as she strove to put her memories in their proper order.

She had come back to Toronto to take her revenge on Robert’s murderers, but everything had gone wrong. Her love for Robert had redeemed her lost mortality. After nearly a millennium as a vampire, she had become human again. That unexpected blessing, her beloved’s final gift, had been ripped away from her by the one she thought least likely to do so. In the midst of a house fire, having been mortally wounded by Robert’s murderers, she had begged to die. Instead, Nicolas had made her a vampire once more.

Anger dominated her now, and she used it to drive away the emotional pain of her grief. Nicolas had betrayed her. Nicolas, of all people! Nicolas, who had driven her away with his own search for a return to mortality, had stripped her of her own with hardly a thought.

She opened her eyes then, and found herself in familiar surroundings. She was in one of the basement rooms at the _Raven_. Of course Nicolas would leave her here! Here there were other vampires who might tend to her needs. Here he could abandon her and avoid responsibility for his actions. She imagined him in a world of self-recrimination. Good! If he could not face her after what he had done to her, then she hoped he drowned in his own guilt!

But first, she needed to feed. She was aware enough now to understand that the physical pain she felt was “first hunger,” and even though she had last experienced it a thousand years ago, she had vivid memories of it. The first time, LaCroix had led her to the owner of her brothel, an abusive pig of a man, and she had exacted her revenge on him while satisfying her hunger. This time, revenge would have to wait. This time, she fed from the reserve stores in the basement. The bottled blood was bland compared to what she desired to drink, but, “One thing at a time,” she muttered to herself.

“Indeed.”

She turned and jumped, startled to see the one being she wanted most to avoid standing in the doorway. She felt a moment of panic when she could not find the signature of his presence in her mind. She could see him, but she could not sense him. It was as though he were a projected image.

In her shock and disorientation, she stepped backward warily, away from him. “LaCroix,” she began, but nothing else was forthcoming.

“Janette?” He looked quizzically at her, as though addressing a stranger who for a moment had reminded him of someone else. She had known him for so long, seen so many things with him, but she had never seen this look on his face before, and it unnerved her.

He stepped up to her tentatively, gently raising her chin until she looked him in the eye, then proceeded to turn her about, examining her closely, inhaling to catch the scent of her blood. In a quiet, controlled voice, he asked her, “What has happened to you, ma fille?” He stood a half-step back suddenly. “No, _not_ ma fille.” He guided her to a pair of chairs in a corner. He seated her and pulled the other chair in close, ordering her as he sat, “I think you had best tell me everything, Janette. What has happened?”

She was terrified of what his reaction would be, but she obeyed. She had never denied or defied him for very long. She knew how powerful he was and how ruthless he could be. She watched him closely as she began, unable to sense his mood or thoughts in the absence of their psychic bond.

She told him about Robert and about her return to mortality, and when she broke down, she wiped her tears away quickly, not wanting to appear weak before him. He startled her by taking her hand and kissing the bloody tears from her fingers, and his eyes softened as the taste of her tears told him what their absent link could not.

He was the perfect audience. He continued to hold her hand while she spoke, and he gave no sign of impatience or inattention as she rambled somewhat through her story. His eyes flared gold when she told him how Nicolas brought her back across despite her pleas to the contrary, and she became frightened then, thinking him angry. When he did speak, it was in the soft, whispered tones that indicated the depth of his emotion.

“How ironic that our Nicholas should be the instrument of your return to immortality. I wonder, does he realize the full extent of the consequences of his actions?”

She did not answer him, afraid her anger at his favorite would not be well received. She was surprised and then relieved to realize that he sensed none of this. She had feared LaCroix’s reaction when he would eventually discover that her return to mortality had severed her bond to him, and that he was no longer her master. She was only now beginning to realize that this was the nature of her new relationship with Nicolas. Would LaCroix view Nicolas’ actions as boon or betrayal?

“Of course he doesn’t,” LaCroix began anew, answering himself. “Our Nicholas has always been impulsive.” He captured her eye with a significant glance as he continued, “And passionate.” Her silence now drew his attention. He knew her so well. He needed no psychic link to sense her mood. “Ah,” he continued, “you are angry with him.” He frowned, eyes still sparkling gold. “But why, my dear? Surely you did not truly expect him to allow you to die.”

But she had. She had wanted to follow Robert into death, hadn’t she? Her grief overwhelmed her and she shed more silent tears, certain that she would be wailing were it not for LaCroix’s presence. She knew his disdain for “crass displays of human emotion.” Still, she mourned her slain love and the loss of her renewed mortality, and she struggled to regain control of her fledgling emotions.

“Janette,” LaCroix said, softly, as her weeping slowed, “I, for one, am gratified that you did not die. Our world is a better place with you in it. I do regret losing you as my daughter, but under the circumstances I am very glad that you remain a part of my family.” He drew her close and kissed her forehead.

Just then, another vampire appeared in the doorway. He was obviously looking for LaCroix. Janette did not recognize him. He was tall, thin, and bald, with an apparent penchant for leather and chains. In another life, she might have flirted with him. Now, however, he barely glanced at her, eyes taking in her disheveled and haggard appearance without interest before asking LaCroix for the keys to one of the storage rooms.

It was no longer her nightclub, but she had left some things in storage as part of her sales agreement with LaCroix. Nothing extensive: some clothes, jewelry, keepsakes, and cash. They should be close by. As LaCroix rose to pass the requested keys, she stopped him with a firm hand on his arm. “I also need your keys,” she said as she stood, facing him. “And I need to know where you’ve stored my belongings,” she continued in explanation.

“Of course,” LaCroix said as he extracted a single key from the larger ringed collection and handed it to her. “Everything is just where you left it.” He clasped her hand once more and raised it to his lips, kissing it gently. “If you will excuse me, I have some things to attend to. Help yourself to anything you need. I will be back later.”

And then he was gone. Janette stood for a moment, clutching the key tightly in her fist. She felt cast off, adrift without LaCroix’s anchoring presence. Not in a thousand years had she felt so alone. LaCroix had been so many things to her: master, father, teacher, protector, tormentor, and many times she had fantasized about being free from him. When she became mortal, she feared that he would somehow reclaim her, and that she would never completely escape him. Now she was truly free, and she felt the world tilt on its axis.

Nicolas had brought her back across, but she knew his attitudes about such things; he would never claim his right as her master. She snorted at the very idea, and startled herself with the sound. It was time to follow LaCroix’s unwitting example. It was time to get on with her life, with the mundane details that demanded so much attention and time. It was time to use her key and take care of business.

A shower and a change of clothes did little to improve her mood. The ones she changed out of stank of smoke and sour blood, and she bundled them in plastic bags destined for the dumpster in the back alley. She gathered the remainder of her things and packed them into luggage she found in LaCroix’s private rooms. He might grumble about that, but he had told her to take what she needed, and she decided to take him at his word. Glancing around one last time, she left the key on his dresser and let herself out into the alley.

It was easy enough to hail a taxi; many were cruising the area looking for fares near the clubs and bars. “Take me to Union Station, but I have a stop to make along the way. Take me to 101 Gateway Lane.” She would risk running into Nicolas at his home before leaving town if it meant completing her errand.

The loft was dark when she arrived, and it was a matter of only a few minutes to make her delivery and return to the taxi. Possession of her portrait had long been a point of contention between them. She now bestowed it on him as a conspicuous visual reminder of his betrayal of her. She hoped he dwelled on that betrayal every time he looked at it. In time, she expected that her anger at him would fade, but it was hot now, and this was the best revenge she could come up with on short notice.

The train station was surprisingly busy, even at this late hour, and she hustled all of her bags into a luggage locker. Slipping into a handicapped stall in the ladies’ room, she took the opportunity to drink thirstily from one of the bottles she had lifted from the _Raven_ ’s cellar. It calmed her somewhat, and she left the washroom intent on the next phase of her plan. She had come back to Toronto to clear Robert’s name, and there was still a chance to do so.

She flew to the Civic Centre, just a few kilometers away. Before the fire, before Nicolas had taken her mortality from her, she literally had been forced to surrender the key to her vengeance. The key opened a locker in the Civic Centre that contained evidence to clear Robert’s name and implicate his killers. But the murderous bastards had taken the key, and she had to find out whether they had used it.

Her timing proved providential. From across the hall she spotted the last two men involved with her Robert’s murder. A quick sweep with supernatural senses confirmed that no one else was around. In a moment she was beside them. In another moment, they were under her hypnotic control, and she moved them quickly to a quiet corner before dispatching both of them in her rage and hunger. She left the locker key and her bite marks on the bodies as a message. “If Nicolas is not called on the case,” she said to herself as she hurriedly returned to Union Station, “Doctor Lambert will alert him. He will know that I have gotten my revenge and have left the area. With any luck, he will also understand that I don’t want him following me.”

Janette left Toronto on the next train; her destination was not as important as her departure. A new life beckoned. To live it well would be the best revenge of all.


End file.
